Car "detailing"

[Sportsman]

A short while ago I spoiled myself and bought a used Jaguar XF 3.0 twin turbo diesel.

It was bought privately and was in good clean condition but you could see it wasn't new.

I decided that it might benefit from a valet to clean it up a bit and was lucky enough to find an English guy just over the border in Normandy who described himself as a car detailer or Auto cosmetic specialist.

He reckoned he could bring the car up to what he described as showroom condition. Well, after 3 days and 300 Euro we went over to pick the car up this afternoon.

WOW

I can honestly say that I have seen a lot of cars in showrooms but not many that looked like this. From the wheels to the engine bay to the leather interior it looks at least as good as new. My only problem now is trying to keep it looking like that.

After looking at a few cars when I bought this one I would have no doubt that if it had looked then like it does now it would have cost two or three thousand more.

It's nice when a proper craftsman does a proper job and totally exceeds your expectations.

[Newt]

Its always a treat to have someone do a job that greatly exceeds what you expected. He charged a good price but did a better job.

 

Do a little happy dance because the above is all too rare.

[Steve Walker]

It has become a big thing these days, and there are also a lot of online retailers selling the equipment and materials to do it at home.

 

A friend of mine bought a brand new Porsche 911, and paid for it to be detailed before collection - said it was very obviously better than the identical car parked next to it that another customer was collecting. Having seen the quality of the paint finish on some cars in the Porsche showroom, I'm not particularly shocked.

[Phone]

Steve,

 

I've always been fond of red and yellow iridescent paint on a Porsche.

Preparation for Concours d' Elegance costs upward of a $1,000. To "Detail" a car in the US can be anything from an automatic car wash and up (about $100). The word "detail" has such a wide span in American English it is almost meaningless.

 

Phone

[Sportsman]

Finished article

 

 

 

[chesters1]

Whats it like underneath?

[Vagabond]

Finished article

So, if I come over to France, not much chance of a lift for me and my fishing gear, then?

[Steve Walker]

Phone, here it typically means an extremely thorough cleaning, machine polishing of the paint to a mirror finish and waxing with high quality wax.

[Rusty]

Sportsman, keeping it like that won’t be too difficult, today’s products are very easy to use. I looked into this when I bought my C30 a couple of years ago, it was a new car and I wanted to look after it. I was sceptical at first, I’d always been a bucket, sponge, shampoo and chamois man (or even the petrol station car wash) and I thought that detailing was just a posh word for a valet but two years and 48k miles later I’m convinced that it’s worth putting a bit more thought into cleaning the car.

 

I spent a bit of time browsing this website, it can get very geeky and there are millions of different products to choose from but later I’ll post up what bought.

 

http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/

 

Edit: Just a thought, it would be worth asking him which products he used to detail the car and how you should keep it clean in the future

Edited December 5, 2015 by Rusty

[Phone]

Rusty,

 

I can answer your last question (tongue in cheek). In the future, ohh well, for a few quid just bring it back to us.

 

Phone